Go easy on us over our Covid errors, lawyers for Cabinet Office and Department of Health beg Inquiry

By Rose On Jun 14, 2023

Lawyers representing the Government today urged the Covid Inquiry to go easy on them over any pandemic mistakes.

Officials in charge of the long-awaited probe were asked not to use a ‘retroscope’ in judging errors may early on in the crisis.

Lawyers also called upon bosses to acknowledge that decisions were made during the ‘biggest peacetime crisis the country has faced’, describing the pandemic era as an ‘all-consuming period akin to a war’ that required ‘Herculean’ efforts.

The Department of Health’s lawyer, Fiona Scolding KC, said it would not ‘necessarily have made the same decisions today with the benefit of hindsight’.

She claimed the agency, headed up by Matt Hancock during the height of the crisis, was often faced with ‘hugely unpalatable options’.

The Department of Health’s lawyer, Fiona Scolding KC, said it would not ‘necessarily have made the same decisions today with the benefit of hindsight’. She claimed the agency, headed up by Matt Hancock during the height of the crisis, was often faced with ‘hugely unpalatable options’

Meanwhile, James Strachan KC, representing the Cabinet Office, urged the inquiry to ‘remember this was a global pandemic’.

Britain’s Covid response has been described as ‘one of UK’s worst ever public health failures’.

The biggest criticisms levelled at the Government centre around the lack of protection given to care home residents and the lack of debate around lockdown policies.

More than 200,000 have died after testing positive for the virus.

What was established during the first day of the inquiry?

As the first day of the evidential hearings began, more than 100 members of the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice campaign group also lined up outside, holding pictures of loved ones as they expressed frustration at feeling ‘excluded from sharing key evidence’.

Bereaved families were promised they would remain ‘at the heart’ of the inquiry, which opened with a 17-minute film about patients who died alone.

Lady Hallett, who led inquests into the 7/7 London bombings, vowed ‘their loss would be recognised’ and she would undertake the thorough investigation they deserve.

Hugo Keith KC, the inquiry’s chief lawyer, later told the inquiry that the lack of thought given to lockdowns was ‘extraordinary’.

Mr Keith added: ‘Very little thought was given to how — if it proved to be necessary — something as complex, difficult and damaging as a national lockdown could be put in place at all.

‘Equally, there appears to have been a failure to think through the potentially massive impact on education and on the economy in trying to control a runaway virus in this way.’

Brexit hampered No10’s pandemic preparations, Mr Keith also said yesterday.

He claimed that work managing a possible no-deal exit from the EU required an ‘enormous amount’ of logistical planning and might have drained critical resources and capacity needed to thwart potential infectious threats.

He told the chair of the inquiry: ‘The pandemic struck the UK just as it was leaving the EU.

‘That departure required an enormous amount of planning and preparation, particularly to address what were likely to be the severe consequences of a no-deal exit on food and medicine supplies, travel and transport, business borders and so on.

‘It is clear that such planning, from 2018 onwards, crowded out and prevented some or perhaps a majority of the improvements that central government itself understood were required to be made to resilience planning and preparedness.

‘Did the attention therefore paid to the risks of a no-deal exit – Operation Yellowhammer as it was known – drain the resources and capacity that should have been continuing the fight against the next pandemic, that should have been utilised in preparing the United Kingdom for civil emergency?

Later during the day, Claire Mitchell KC, the lawyer for Scottish bereaved families, told the inquiry that it would hear from former health secretary Matt Hancock as well as Sir Oliver Letwin, former minister for Government policy.

Although, Covid poses a much smaller threat nowadays thanks to the UK’s wall of immunity from vaccines and repeated waves.

Addressing the inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett, Ms Scolding acknowledged the Department of Health has been accused of repeatedly making the ‘wrong calls’ in its guidance and lockdown policies.

She said: ‘The aim of the department and those working in it was at all times to save lives, minimise serious illness and protect health and care, particularly during the first six months of the pandemic, when less was known about the virus and its transmission.

‘There was frequently a need to issue guidance or create policies where there were in reality no good options.

‘The department recognises the strength of feeling that certain decisions made by us were wrong.

‘For example some people feel lockdowns should have been introduced earlier and for longer. Others hold an opposite and contrary view.’

But the department, now headed up by Steve Barclay, was ‘often faced’ with a ‘series of hugely unpalatable options’, Ms Scolding argued.

‘All of which were certain to have negative impacts on the citizens of the UK in one way or another,’ she added.

‘Decisions were often extremely finely balanced.

Ms Scolding told the inquiry: ‘The department will not seek during the course of this enquiry to say that it did everything right or that it would necessarily have made the same decisions today in 2023 with the benefit of hindsight.

‘We will however propose that it is necessary to recognise the context of the time — particularly in respect of pandemic preparedness.

‘It was very different to what we know now and would ask you my lady not to impose what we would call a retroscope upon decision making.’

Ms Scolding acknowledged that guidance issued by the department had taken a ‘profound’ toll on families and friends who were isolated.

She added: ‘Guidance, support, equipment, services and policies during the pandemic was a Herculean task and was the greatest challenge ever faced by the NHS and adult social care sector.

‘You will hear the department referring to various documents as battle plans and operations precisely because it was an all-consuming period akin to a war.’

Meanwhile, Mr Strachan, representing the Cabinet Office, acknowledged the impact of the pandemic ‘went far beyond the many whose health suffered directly’.

‘The virus and the measures taken in response affected the economy and society profoundly,’ he added.

However, addressing Lady Hallett, he said: ‘This inquiry will rightly focus on Covid’s profound effects on the UK.

‘But it is right to remember that this was a global pandemic. It affected the lives of everyone.

‘No one country was left untouched and each government had to make extremely difficult choices in mitigating the suffering and hardship caused to its citizens.’

James Strachan KC, representing the Cabinet Office, urged the inquiry to ‘remember this was a global pandemic’. He added: ‘It affected the lives of everyone’

He added: ‘My lady, the Covid pandemic was the biggest peacetime crisis this country faced in decades.

‘Its consequences will be felt for decades to come but it is important to recognise the many sacrifices that have been and will continue to be made across our country as a result of this virus.

‘There will be much to learn from scrutinizing with the full benefit of hindsight, what happened first in terms of preparation then examining the response in terms of the breadth and scale.’

However he acknowledged, that as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated, when announcing the inquiry in May 2021, ‘it is essential the Government’s actions, its structures, processes and judgements are examined vigorously, candidly and objectively’.

He told the inquiry this will ensure ‘every possible lesson from this terrible global event as it affected the UK is learned and remembered’.

It comes after the inquiry’s lead lawyer Hugo Keith KC told Lady Hallett yesterday, on the first day of the probe’s public hearing, that Britain ‘might not have been well prepared at all’ for the pandemic.

Yesterday the inquiry’s chief lawyer, Hugo Keith KC, presented the Inquiry with an extraordinarily complicated flow chart detailing the government’s chain of command in helping to protect Brits from future pandemics. The diagram, drawn up in August 2019, links together more than 100 organisations involved in preparing the country for any future infectious threats

Hugo Keith KC told the Inquiry yesterday that the nation was ‘taken by surprise’ by ‘significant aspects’ of the disease that has been recorded on 226,977 death certificates

Later, he told the hearing that officials failed to consider the ‘potentially massive’ impact that lockdowns would have on the UK.

And he suggested that those responsible for restricting public freedoms as the virus took hold had spent barely any time discussing the measures in advance.

This was despite the Government making preparations for a flu-like pandemic which would have affected public health in a different way.

Mr Keith said: ‘Extraordinary though it may seem, given that it’s a word that’s forever seared in the nation’s consciousness, there was very little debate pre-pandemic of whether a lockdown might prove to be necessary in the event of a runaway virus, let alone how a lockdown could be avoided.

‘Very little thought was given to how, if it proved to be necessary, how something as complex, difficult and damaging as a national lockdown could be put in place at all.’

Brexit also hampered No10’s pandemic preparations, Mr Keith also told the Inquiry.

Lawyers for bereaved families also echoed concerns that the Government was preoccupied with Brexit in their opening statements to the first day of public hearings in the three-year official inquiry.

Brexiteer Tory MP Craig Mackinlay said it was ‘quite remarkable’ that anti-Brexit arguments should be aired ‘in the forum of the Covid Inquiry’.

Mr Keith also presented the Inquiry with an extraordinarily complicated flow chart detailing the government’s chain of command in helping to protect Brits from future pandemics.

The diagram, drawn up in August 2019, links together more than 100 organisations involved in preparing the country for any future infectious threats.

But the flow chart, illustrated with a tangle of arrows and dotted lines, looked ‘much more like a bowl of spaghetti than a clear and coordinated framework for a cogent national response’, the lawyer for the Trades Union Congress told the inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett.

While other inquiries have opened across the world, the UK’s will be the first to reach public hearings with evidence from witnesses.

Many familiar faces thrust into the limelight during the pandemic are expected to make an appearance.

This could include Sir Chris Whitty, Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, Sir Patrick Vallance and members of the Independent SAGE group of scientists.

Boris Johnson, David Cameron, George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt will also likely be among the politicians giving evidence to Hallett’s inquiry.

Government data up to June 4 shows the number of Covid cases recorded since March 2020. As many as 70 witnesses will contribute to the first module on pandemic preparedness. Wednesday’s session will this afternoon hear from Dr Charlotte Hammer, an epidemiologist from Cambridge University and Professor Jimmy Whitworth, an infectious diseases expert from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Government data up to May 12 shows the number of deaths of people whose death certificate mentioned Covid as one of the causes, and seven-day rolling average. Baroness Hallett told the inquiry she intends to answer three key questions: was the UK properly prepared for the pandemic, was the response appropriate, and can lessons be learned for the future?

Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former chief aide, is among other names expected to appear.

Claire Mitchell KC, the lawyer for Scottish bereaved families, told the inquiry yesterday that it would hear from former health secretary Matt Hancock as well as Sir Oliver Letwin, former minister for Government policy.

As many as 70 witnesses will contribute to the first module on pandemic preparedness.

Wednesday’s session will this afternoon hear from Dr Charlotte Hammer, an epidemiologist from Cambridge University and Professor Jimmy Whitworth, an infectious diseases expert from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The first module will run for six weeks, until 20 July. The probe is not expected to conclude until 2026.

A separate Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry chaired by Lord Brailsford is looking at the pandemic response in devolved areas in Scotland.

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said he and the Welsh government are fully committed to the inquiry, though they maintain that there is no need for Wales to hold its own inquiry.

Will Boris Johnson be quizzed? Who else will be involved? And how long will it take? EVERYTHING you need to know about the Covid inquiry

Why was the inquiry set up?

There has been much criticism of the UK government’s handling of the pandemic, including the fact the country seemed to lack a thorough plan for dealing with such a major event.

Other criticisms levelled at the Government include allowing elderly people to be discharged from hospitals into care homes without being tested, locking down too late in March 2020 and the failures of the multi-billion NHS test and trace.

Families of those who lost their loved ones to Covid campaigned for an independent inquiry into what happened.

Then Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was right that lessons are learned, announcing in May 2021 that an inquiry would be held.

Will Boris Johnson be quizzed? If so, when?

It’s not clear exactly when, or if, the former Prime Minister will be quizzed. No full list of witnesses has been published yet.

But given he was in charge of the Government for almost the entirety of the pandemic, his insights will prove central to understanding several aspects of the nation’s response.

If called forward as a witness, he would be hauled in front of the committee to give evidence.

What topics will the inquiry cover?

There are currently six broad topics, called modules, that will be considered by the inquiry.

Module 1 will examine the resilience and preparedness of the UK for a coronavirus pandemic.

Module 2 will examine decisions taken by Mr Johnson and his then team of ministers, as advised by the civil service, senior political, scientific and medical advisers, and relevant committees.

The decisions taken by those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will also be examined.

Module 3 will investigate the impact of Covid on healthcare systems, including on patients, hospitals and other healthcare workers and staff.

This will include the controversial use of Do Not Attempt Resuscitation notices during the pandemic.

Module 4 meanwhile will assess Covid vaccines and therapeutics.

It will consider and make recommendations on a range of issues relating to the development of Covid vaccines and the implementation of the vaccine rollout programme in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Modules 5 and 6 will open later this year, investigating government procurement and the care sector.

Who is in charge of the inquiry?

Baroness Heather Hallett is in the charge of the wide-reaching inquiry. And she’s no stranger to taking charge of high profile investigations.

The 72-year-old ex-Court of Appeal judge was entrusted by Mr Johnson with chairing the long-awaited public probe into the coronavirus crisis.

Her handling of the inquiry will be subject to ferocious scrutiny.

Until Baroness Hallett was asked to stand aside, she was acting as the coroner in the inquest of Dawn Sturgess, the 44-year-old British woman who died in July 2018 after coming into contact with the nerve agent Novichok.

She previously acted as the coroner for the inquests into the deaths of the 52 victims of the July 7, 2005 London bombings.

She also chaired the Iraq Fatalities Investigations, as well as the 2014 Hallett Review of the administrative scheme to deal with ‘on the runs’ in Northern Ireland.

Baroness Hallett, a married mother-of-two, was nominated for a life peerage in 2019 as part of Theresa May’s resignation honours.

How long will it take?

When he launched the terms of the inquiry in May 2021, Mr Johnson said he hoped it could be completed in a ‘reasonable timescale’.

But, realistically, it could take years.

It has no formal deadline but is due to hold hearings across the UK until at least 2025.

Interim reports are scheduled to be published before public hearings conclude by summer 2026.

The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war began in 2009 but the final, damning document wasn’t released until 2016.

Meanwhile, the Bloody Sunday inquiry took about a decade.

Should a similar timescale be repeated for the Covid inquiry, it would take the sting out of any criticism of any Tory Government failings.

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